In the December 3 episode of ABC's FlashForward television drama, researchers from a fictional research organization called the National Linear Accelerator Project, purportedly located in Palo Alto, California, announced that they might have caused the worldwide blackout that killed 20 million people by conducting "proton-driven plasma-wakefield acceleration" experiments.

While this makes for enthralling TV, it's definitely not reality TV. Here's some information to help you distinguish the fact from fiction in the TV episode.

Is there a National Linear Accelerator Project in Palo Alto, California?
No. But SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy research laboratory operated by Stanford University, is located in Menlo Park, California.

Does SLAC conduct proton-driven plasma-wakefield acceleration experiments?
SLAC does have a cutting-edge plasma-wakefield acceleration program that is creating the next generation of particle accelerators. However, it works by accelerating electrons (and their anti-matter cousin positrons) rather than the much heavier protons. At this time, there are no experiments that attempt to accelerate protons using plasma wakefields.

What is plasma-wakefield acceleration?
First conceived in 1979, plasma-wakefield acceleration is a technique being developed to create a future generation of particle accelerators that can reach high energies in short distances.

It works by creating a powerful electric field within a plasma—a form of matter similar to a gas that's commonly used in science and industry. The electric field pulls subatomic particles forward as it pushes them from behind, accelerating them to high energies in a short distance.

In 2006, researchers at SLAC accelerated a tightly packed bunch of electrons to 42 billion electronvolts (or GeV) of energy in SLAC's two-mile linear accelerator, which uses conventional acceleration techniques. The researchers then passed the bunch through a 33-inch long chamber filled with gas. When the bunch first entered the chamber, it added enough energy to the gas to turn it into plasma. This plasma left a wake that flowed to the back of the bunch and shoved it forward, accelerating the electrons on the crest of the plasma wave. (Learn more about this experiment here.)

This plasma wakefield experiment created one of the most intense accelerations achieved in a laboratory. However, the technique is not yet ideal because it accelerates some of the electrons more than others, spreading out the electron bunch. Particle physics experiments require tightly packed particle bunches. Now, researchers at SLAC are developing the new Facilities for Accelerator Science and Experimental Test Beam, or FACET, which will accelerate electron bunches in a plasma while keeping them tightly packed together.

Why does SLAC conduct plasma-wakefield acceleration research?
Accelerators play a key role in basic science research, medical technologies, industrial processes, food preparation, environmental cleanup and many other applications. Current methods of particle acceleration, which use radio-frequency waves to give particles a boost much as an ocean wave can accelerate a surfer, have reached their limits.

To accelerate particles to even higher energies and to use accelerators for new applications, researchers need a less costly, more efficient means of accelerating particles to ever-greater energies. With those technologies, they will be able to answer many of science's most pressing questions including the origin of mass and the identity of dark matter.

The smaller, cheaper, more powerful accelerators made possible with plasma-wakefield acceleration would not only access new realms of particle physics but also improve the estimated 17,000 particle accelerators in everyday use around the world.

Is there any way that plasma-wakefield experiments could cause a "flashforward"?
No. Plasma-wakefield acceleration is just an advanced technique to boost particles to high energies, something that particle physicists have been doing for decades. Even the most speculative theories rooted in real physics make no prediction that anything like a flashforward could occur.

“Although we can use particle accelerators to essentially look backward in time to recreate the conditions of the universe soon after the big bang, there is no known way to look into the future,” says Mark Hogan, chief experimental scientist for the plasma wakefield program at SLAC’s FACET.

Where can I learn more about the real science behind plasma-wakefield acceleration?
More information about plasma-wakefield acceleration experiments at SLAC and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory can be found in "Crashing the Size Barrier," an article published in the October edition of symmetry magazine.

Where can I learn more about the science behind the book version of FlashForward?
Robert J. Sawyer’s book FlashForward follows a similar, but not identical, plot as the TV show. In the book, CERN’s Large Hadron Collider provides the particle physics setting for the flashforward event.

To learn more about the book, you could try this series of articles in symmetry:
The science behind FlashForward 
FlashForward author Robert J. Sawyer on the LHC, Higgs, and Hollywood
FlashForward: More on the science behind the story

Also, CERN created a Web page with some information and the US LHC Web site compiled some resources. 

What else does SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory do?
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is a multi-program laboratory exploring frontier questions in photon science, astrophysics, particle physics and accelerator research. Located in Menlo Park, California, SLAC is operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. You can get an overview of SLAC from its main Web pages, including overviews of its main research areas and its scientific programs.